Our Town (17 page)

“I love you more, baby,” Dorothy said and Dorothy leaned her head back against her headrest. “Jesus, I do. More than anything. More than the earth, the moon, the sun, and the stars.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“No, I’m saying I mean it though.”

“I know, Mom.”

“Well, let me help you now, baby. I’m here already. Lean on me. Let me get out and get your bag and get you on that—”

“No!” Clover interrupted. “I mean, no, Mama. You don’t have to do that. I can handle it, Mama. I swear.”

“You sure, baby? I wouldn’t mind.”

“No, Mama. I know you’ve got a bad back and everything. I’ve got this, Mama. I swear.”

“Okay, baby. Okay,” Dorothy said. Clover leaned into her mother and kissed her and got out and opened the trunk and lugged her duffle out onto the pavement.

DOROTHY WATCHED HER
daughter line up behind other children—weighed down on her right side as her duffle dug into her neck—until she made it up onto the bus. To make sure she was safe. She hoped her daughter would turn back and look at her before she stepped on. Maybe wave. Like in an Elvis movie. But she didn’t, so Dorothy just drove back home.

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*

Dale pounded his sneakers into the first flight of stairs. Then the second, then the third. He knocked on his son’s door. Dylan had locked it. At this time, Dylan’s fifteen. Dale twisted the doorknob a few times, and then knocked, again. And then knocked, again. He’d just been called by Dylan’s court-ordered therapist. Dylan, it seemed, had been acting out. They told him that Dylan had missed a session. And that this wasn’t the first time. This upset Dale. His son’s sessions were expensive—two hundred dollars each. For a special therapist. The best at handling problem children—making them feel safe—through their parents’ divorces. That’s what the judge told them, anyway. And Dale had to pay for these sessions, even though they were required, by law, if a judge deemed them necessary. But he also felt they were important. He felt he was losing his son—even though he didn’t quite know him—but nonetheless he’d begun to lose patience. But this more selfish reason paled in comparison to the financial repercussions. Self-lessness comes with humility. Humility comes with an understanding of self. An understanding of self comes with clearheadedness. Clear-headedness comes with sobriety. Sobriety was more than a ways off. Dale’s still knocking. Dale didn’t want to yell at his son. He’d yelled enough, already. But his girlfriend told him he had to. “He can’t keep doing this,” she said. “He can’t keep doing this to us. He’s gonna hurt you if we don’t stop him.” And his girlfriend was right. But Dale didn’t like to get angry, anymore. That’s how he lost his ex-wife. Well that’s what he told people. And himself, when he was feeling gullible. A few hours in. But he didn’t know what else to do. So he had a drink and forced it.

“Dylan,” he shouted. “Open the door. Open the fucking door.” He heard Dylan get out of bed. Dylan couldn’t sleep at night. Nervous energy. So he’d nap after school. If he went to school. Dale heard the door unlock. He heard the doorknob turn. It squealed. And again. Dylan pulled open the door a crack. “What?” he said. Dylan looked tired. Dale pushed the door open and went past his son. Dylan fell
back. He looked scared. “What happened?” Dale stepped into Dylan’s face. Dylan was still quite short. He’d matured late. But nonetheless he always would be. Dale resented him for that. “Did you miss your appointment with Dr. Seltzer?” And again. “Did you miss your appointment with Dr. Seltzer?” And again. “Did you miss your fucking appointment with Dr. Seltzer?”

Dylan looked down at his toes. “I don’t like it there, Dad. I don’t need it anymore.” Untrue.

“That’s not fucking up to you! How many have you missed?” Dale shaped his right fist like a gun and pushed the barrel into the center of his son’s chest.

“Like three, I think. Maybe four.” Dale pressed harder into his rib-cage. He forced him onto the bed. He pressed him down and held him there. He stopped talking. He grabbed his son and flipped him over. He pulled down his pants. Dylan screamed into his pillows. And Dale smacked Dylan’s ass. Dale smacked his ass until he was sure he’d bruise. And he continued to do so until he was sure he’d done so. Still down, Dale saw his son’s cry slopping out on his pillow. And Dale stopped. He never saw his son cry again. And later that night he’d cry himself. But nobody believed those tears.
Poor me, poor me, pour me a drink.
He put on a show for Kim. The new one. But even she didn’t buy it. He was never much of an actor.

A+!

T
heir court-ordered companion followed the children close behind his nose as he walked in through Dorothy’s apartment door. He held them in place and surveyed the apartment, and then he ushered them through. It had been a while since they’d seen their mama. So they walked in sheepishly. Head down. But Dorothy sprang up. She pushed past the stranger and held her children tight. She held them awhile. Dylan tried to shove her off. He didn’t like hugging. But she wouldn’t let him go.

“My babies,” she said in a whisper.

“Hi, Mama,” they both replied.

She finally let loose. She walked them toward the couch. This apartment was cheaper than the last. The couch was pleathery. Everything was pleathery. The divorce money hadn’t lasted as long as she’d liked. And you don’t get the child support when you don’t have the children. Clover sat on the left side of the sofa. Dylan sat on the right. Dorothy sat across from them—across a coffee table—in a wooden rocking chair.

Clover looked at her mother. She was a junior, now, and her brother was seventeen in ninth grade. He sat against the armrest of the couch and then reached for a coffee-table book. He picked up the photography of Man Ray. He looked at all the nudity. But Clover looked at her mama. And Mama looked back at her. She’d gotten dressed up. Both of
them. Dorothy wore red heels and new glasses—jewel-speckled green plastic. She wore a beige headband around her crimped wig and too much makeup—blue eye shadow, red lips, and clown blush too white. Clover wore a sundress over her freckled legs. She wore makeup, too. For Mama. Like Mama. But hers was more understated. They stared at each other. And then they spoke.

“How’ve you been, baby?” Dorothy asked her daughter.

“I’ve been okay. School and everything, you know.”

“Well, not really,” Dorothy replied. They froze. “But never mind. How’s that going? School?” Dorothy leaned back into the love seat.

“I don’t know, Mom. School’s school, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Actually, I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t much of a student. Anyway, how are you, Dyl, baby?”

He looked up from the book and cocked his head. He picked up his hands and gave her two thumbs up and smiled. Then he looked back down.

Throughout, the court-ordered companion stood in the corner with his back to both walls. He checked his watch periodically. This visit was only allowed to be thirty-five minutes. Talking like this—of little substance—went on awhile. They are twenty-six minutes in.

“Well it’s great to see you guys.” It was great to see them. And it was great for them to see her. They just didn’t have much else to say.

“We love you too, Mama,” they both replied in unison.

“And you, whatever your name is,” Dorothy swung her arm up at the corner, but kept her eyes pointed at her kids, “can pretty much go fuck yourself.”

THE MYSTERIOUS TWO

I
n 1980, when her lease was up on her apartment in Venice, Dorothy moved to Santa Monica, where she met her second ex-husband-to-be, Gary. She was at Price Club buying hand towels, toiletries, peanuts, and pretzels. They were introduced when their hands brushed as they both reached for the family-sized jar of Vaseline. She was new in town, and he seemed pleasant enough. He seemed stand-up, and moral. And nothing like Calbert, who stole her Rottweilers and sold them one night she was too tired for sex. Gary was a local preacher. Sold his smile for a living. Could charm the hat right off your head. Dorothy was alone, now, and she thought she needed guidance. She thought it might help her cope with her children getting older. Why they’d stopped calling. Why they seemed not to care. Just why everything went the way it did. Just why, is all. Just why. And it worked for a while. It made her feel clean. Even though he threw out her typewriter. But eventually she got restless and bought another. Kept it hidden. He felt as if they were bonded and fused. Welded or limed. But she never got her wings clipped. She couldn’t just stay on the ground.

*
  
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Just before she moved in with Gary, though—they moved in together after a fast six weeks—she planned to spend two weeks in New York shopping. Thought she’d have another “me” trip. Had a feeling it might be her last. One last trip might make her happy. Might make it easier to eventually just say yes. Except that she didn’t have much money to spend. She could afford three days, two nights at a Howard Johnson. So she booked that, and went. She bought a shark-skin purse, a silk scarf, and a snow globe. By this point, she’d already attempted to quit smoking and drinking and writing
—You know whom creativity’s for? The devil!
—because she found religion. And Gary told her to stop. He couldn’t be around someone who acted that way. Her actions reflected his image poorly. So she tried. But—but—she smoked those last two nights, because those nights were for her, and she enjoyed those cigarettes. And she enjoyed a martini, and she enjoyed a man. She enjoyed every decision she made that trip—her choices—very, very much. But she had to head back home, because back home there was Gary, and she’d become worried she might have to be saved. And he told her she had to stop. Stop everything. He told her religion would make her better. And all that chicanery was considered untoward. But she still held on to her drugs—
These here, baby? These are prescriptions!
But she tried to keep it secret. More and more secret.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN WHEN I’M DIPPIN’ FROM THE COPS

I
t was a long flight, so everyone was tired. But as they waited to deplane with sleepless anticipation—the heads of the tallest passengers tilted down as though they were looking on the floor for change—they noticed that the once slow-moving, single-file line had now crawled to a complete stop, and they began to grow restless. The people in the front third were the only ones who could see why their progress had been stunted, and they were also the only ones who didn’t mind not moving. It was as though traffic had forced them to stop and stare at an accident alongside the road, so they felt it their right—almost their duty—to rubberneck. They couldn’t continue on before they realized why. The taller ones straightened up and looked over the other passengers. The shorter ones were lucky to be at the front. They—they all—watched a woman at the head of the line hold her tray table in her right hand with all her fight and might, as the three still-working flight attendants—two female, one not, but barely—pulled at her legs to remove her from her seat. Finally, her arm gave way. She might have lasted longer, but, earlier that day, her wig had fallen off, and she’d lost a few of her pins, and she held that—her Farrah—in her left hand while her right hand held on to the plane. She didn’t like knowing that if she’d let go of her wig and grabbed on with both arms she could’ve fought harder—like
a good daughter of the revolution—but that was a good wig. One of her favorites. It was important to her—very much so—so she had to let go of the tray table. As she was dragged off the plane, she reflected on her ability to prioritize even through her most trying moments. Her effort made her proud. So she smiled and pushed her wig up toward the sky—with both hands—so as not to get it dirty—as her back scraped the greased-down, chartreuse carpet of the plane.

DOROTHY WAS RECALCITRANT
, denying that she hadn’t left her overnight bag in New York. That it was on that plane. That she was sure of it. They told her so—“It wasn’t on that plane,” they said. “We promise.” But she wouldn’t have it. She sat in an empty room. Blank white walls. White linoleum floor. The sort you could hear when you stepped on it. The three flight attendants entered, and they had called their home-base supervisor so he now joined them, too. There weren’t any windows. And the lights were on, high and hot.

“It was in my hand,” Dorothy said, “when I got on. I put it in the bin over my head but when I get up it’s missin’. I’ve paid the same amount of money as everyone else. All I want is to be treated like they all are. Be treated just the same.” She was sweating, now. Her back stuck to the pleather chair. “Why can’t you just give me my bag and let me go?”

They viewed her with curiosity and caution. She figured, perhaps, they recognized her. She’d once even portrayed a stewardess in a spot for TWA! But the staff was just fearful of the oddity. An animal in a zoo. A boa constrictor. Or rare bird. Make sure you don’t move too quickly. And don’t ever touch the glass. Don’t wake her.

“We don’t have your bag, Ms. White. We’ve searched the plane more than once. It’s just about been ransacked.”

The airport official turned his back to her and whispered to the three flight attendants. He seemed to be talking to only the man. The girls looked over their boss’s shoulder. They looked at Dorothy with furrowed eyes. Owl’s eyes. Like she couldn’t see them back. She couldn’t hear what the boss was saying. She just heard his lispy whisper. However, she could see the steward’s Errol Flynn moustache—thin and
waxy—curl up at something the boss man said. And she figured she might get out today. She fished around in her purse. In the past, she’d been told that her perfume brought out the claustrophobia in people. She dug into her pocketbook and pulled out her atomizer and sprayed herself eight times—twice on each side of her neck, twice on each wrist. She waited a second for the acrid air to settle and then lit a cigarette. She’d just begun smoking Virginia Slims. Finally Virginia Slims. And she loved them. Suddenly, all their faces were smushed and soured. And their wispy conversation came to an abrupt halt. Her sense of smell had never been keen, and had gotten worse recently with her deviated septum—so she sprayed her perfume on heavy. And she didn’t care what anyone thought. But that was just an excuse. Once the attendants pulled themselves together and shook themselves off, the boss turned toward Dorothy and walked a few steps and pulled a chair up and sat down. He rested his hands on each of his knees. He wore a blue suit with wide lapels and plastic TransPacific wings pinned above his pocket square. His white socks showed between his suede boots and his pants hem. And his breath stank like cat’s breath.